Season series: The St. Louis Blues have won their past seven games against the Minnesota Wild, including two this season. The most recent was a 2-1 victory by the Blues on Dec. 31 at Xcel Energy Center. They play two more times this season.

Big story: Can anyone slow down the Blues with Ryan Miller in goal? St. Louis has won all four games since its big trade with the Buffalo Sabres on Feb. 28, and a win against the Wild would move the Blues into first place in the overall standings. Minnesota holds the first of two wild-card spots in the Western Conference, meaning that these teams could meet in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Team Scope:

Blues: St. Louis was a very good team before acquiring Miller. The Blues have been unbeatable with him in goal. A 2-1 road victory against the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday gave Miller a 4-0-0 record since coming to St. Louis, and he's allowed six goals in those four games.

"It's been great to contribute," he said after making 26 saves in the win against the Avalanche. "Things have really worked out in our favor. It's been good, a hardworking game. Guys are playing honest hockey, and they've gotten good results because of it."

The win was Miller's first in seven career decisions against the Avalanche; he had been 0-3-3 with a 3.59 goals-against average and a save percentage of .888.

Miller might get his first day off; coach Ken Hitchcock indicated during the week that he intended to give Brian Elliott a start in one of the two games this weekend.

Wild: Minnesota was less than a period away from its fifth win in a row, but couldn't hold off the Dallas Stars, who scored twice for a 4-3 victory. Erik Cole's breakaway goal snapped a 3-3 tie with 4:49 remaining in regulation. The game-winning goal came four minutes after Tyler Seguin tied the game during a five-minute power play awarded after Erik Haula was assessed a major penalty for charging after colliding with Dallas goaltender Kari Lehtonen.

"We battled really hard in this game," coach Mike Yeo said. "Our guys put a lot into it, but we just didn’t do it smart enough."

Yeo wasn't happy with the call on Haula, feeling that his player had been tripped before hitting Lehtonen. But he said the call wasn't why the Wild lost.

"I'm not going to sit here and complain about that," he said. "We did enough things in this game to shoot ourselves in the foot."

Who's hot: Right wing T.J. Oshie has three points in St. Louis' past three games. Miller has allowed six goals on 90 shots since coming to the Blues. … Minnesota center Kyle Brodziak has scored a goal in back-to-back games.

Injury report: Blues defenseman Jordan Leopold (ankle) and forward Vladimir Sobotka (knee) are sidelined, though Leopold could return as early as next week and Sobotka has been skating. … Wild forward Jason Zucker (leg) is on injured reserve. Goaltenders Josh Harding (illness) and Niklas Backstrom (abdomen) are not expected to play again this season.

Tough win last night. Once we scored the two early goals, I thought the flood gates were going to open and we'd crest the 5 goal mark for the first time in awhile. Instead, we didn't score again until the shootout. That said, we held our ground and weathered a lot of blows from the Wild.

Osh came up big in the shootout again (go figure). Ells made some nice saves while facing only 17 shots and then did what he needed to do in the shootout.

You can tell the schedule is wearing on the team but they're still winning. But looking ahead at the schedule, we've got 10 home games left, 8 away. We've forged through this away-heavy post Olympics schedule on a 5 game winning streak after losing the first two. A lot to be happy about.

Saw that the Blues have (IIRC) 46 hit posts this season, most in the league. Man, do I believe it.

And still, first place.

Do those count the ones that went in?

I doubt it. Assuming it doesn't, it's pretty incredible that we've scored so much with all of those posts. I would think that would be a stat that correlates with a team that struggles to score because it's pretty unlucky.

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